Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist
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Our view
“Mood Machine” is a sharp, well-sourced investigation into how Spotify reshaped the way music is made, paid for and heard. Liz Pelly builds her case on testimony from more than a hundred insiders, ex-employees and musicians, and ends with the listeners and artists organising against algorithmic listening. Some readers who already follow the music business find parts of it familiar, from the meagre payouts to the way promotion is traded for lower royalties.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist is a 2025 book by Liz Pelly, a music journalist and adjunct professor at New York University, that critically examines the music streaming platform Spotify.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.7 across 60 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 29% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Rankings average of 7.8. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 7.7 | 60 | 100% |
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
